Abstract
M.Tech.
Myofascial pain has become a major cause of disability and chronic pain in our society today. Left untreated, myofascial pain syndrome can become a chronic pain condition. Chronic pain conditions can not only cause disability due to pain, but can also lead to related conditions such as depression, physical deconditioning due to lack of exercise, disturbance of sleep and other psychological and behavioural disturbances (Rachlin, 1994).
The aim of this study was to determine whether cryotherapy or moist heat therapy was a superior therapeutic modality when applied to active Infraspinatus muscle trigger points post-dry needling.
Participants were recruited into the study by the use of advertisements put up at various places on the university campus as well as in the University of Johannesburg Chiropractic Day Clinic. Fourty participants that conformed to the specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were recruited. The participants were randomly placed into two groups containing twenty participants in each group. Group A received cryotherapy post-dry needling and Group B received moist heat therapy post dry needling. Each participant received four treatments. The subjective and objective measurements were taken on the first, third and fifth visits. The fifth visit was scheduled to take final subjective and objective data only.
The subjective data was obtained by measuring the participant‟s perception of their myofascial pain using the Visual Analogue Pain Scale. The objective data was obtained from the readings of the Algometer instrument, measuring the pressure pain threshold of the active myofascial trigger points in the Infraspinatus muscle.
The results of this study indicated that both cryotherapy and moist heat therapy significantly benefited the participants in terms of the treatment of the active myofascial trigger points of the Infraspinatus muscle. However, based on the results, final conclusions could not be formulated on whether the dry needling itself would be beneficial without needing the cryotherapy or the moist heat therapy, as neither modality proved superior over the other.